San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Seeing the fountain in real life was great having studied it and its significance to modern art. It was a lot cleaner that I thought it would be??? I dont know why but I kinda thought it would be used and dirty. Which I guess would be kind of gross. I also didn't realise that its not the original one, and that the original one was lost - the one in the MoMa was a replica. It was curated with other 'readymade' works of art including a pool table that had the balls stuck down - rendering it useless as a game but functional as a piece of furniture.

I really enjoyed the work of Arshile Gorky, an American born abstract expressionist. I liked the bold shapes outlined by a heavy black outline, and thought it would be a good reference point for my drawings which are often quite abstract. After seeing this I thought that perhaps I could look to abstract expressionist art to create spectacles from - a lot like the process I using for the Wall to Wall exhibition.

There was work by __ that showed both his 2D prints and his sculpture. There was an obvious correlation between the two but it was not explicitly a replica of the what was depicted in the print. For example there was a cobalt blue sculpture of a Shetland pony but the blue pony in the print - whilst clearly a pony - did not have defined features and was more ambiguous. However by using the same blue there is an obvious link between the two. In the print with the cucumbers on the leopard print cushion, the cucumbers are crossed, however in the 3D sculpture there are 3 of them and they are standing upright with hazelnuts on top of them. However you can see the link again because of the colour palette. The side of the box says 'tres ases' which means three aces - which could describe the 3 cucumbers.

Native North America

Native North America - Larry J. Zimmerman, Brian Leigh Molyneaux

This is my friends reference book for her class on Native American Culture where her professor is a Native American. He has issues with this book because it was written by a white man who observed the culture, who assumed he knew everything about the ways of the people. However as her professor has to prescribe reading for the class, this book was the best of a bad bunch. Its a never ending debate about whether outsiders should be allowed to observe other cultures but arguably we then wouldn't have the cross cultural variations we have today and we would have a lesser understanding of the world.

As I have been looking at ritual and also ritual costume I thought looking at this book and attending one of her classes whilst I am in San Francisco would be interesting.

Concepts of time:

Europeans perceive time as a long straight road from the past to the distant horizon of the future. This distances people from their ancestors and the ancients.
Many Indian peoples see time as circular - marked by birth, growth, maturity, death and regeneration of all things that share the earth.
This pattern is echoed in the setting and rising of the sun
The past is a place where all things reside that have completed the cycle.

Patterns and Symbols:

All Native North American cultures use art to express connections with the earth.
They can be made from and applied to almost any material such as hides, wood, beads, bone, shell or stone.
They often reflect the natural surroundings or depict creatures from peoples cosmology such as thunderbirds.
plains are shown through rectangles whereas circles symbolize the dome of the sky or the floor of a tipi.
Much art of the northwest coast is representational and has only the key features or characteristics of an animal or person.

The Life of the Spirit

Everything that the creator made has a spirit therefore all things are related and all things are sacred.
Mutual respect is expressed for everything - both past and present
The threads of ordinary life and spirituality are tightly interwoven, and the simplest everyday act can have spiritual meaning.
The sacred life of each Indian nation is linked to its own particular environment.
Nature and spirit are inseperable and mutually dependent
The Earth acts as a host to human beings


Ceremonial Transformations

The world of the living and the world of the spirits are connected via an 'in-between' world of transition.
Every entity to a certain extent inhabits all 3 worlds
If a human possessed the power or carried out sacred rituals then he or she could transform into an entity from one of the other worlds - and the audience would believe that they had literally become the being - animal or human.
Masks are a way of connecting with these other worlds and essential in transformation
Powwow's are a traditional large gathering tribal or intertribal that encompasses singing, dancing, giveaways and honouring ceremonies.
The dances are colourfully costumed with shawls, beads, bustles and elaborate headgear and a drumbeat directs the movements of the dance.